


dance on the ice until it breaks

by Anonymous



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-28 22:19:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13281012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ever since he was ten, Carter’s always associated outdoor hockey with Sam, practicing breakaways and shooting pucks from every angle he could think of. Sam, taking off his blocker and glove and taking his hands and towing him around the rink, skating backwards as snow fell around them. Sam, laughing, cheeks and nose pink in the cold, sticking out his tongue to catch a snowflake and swiping a puck towards the goal while Carter was distracted doing it too.





	dance on the ice until it breaks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thistidalwave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/gifts).



> thistidalwave, i was so excited when i saw you would be my recip! i couldn't give you oilers, but i could give you some boys from near edmonton. i hope you enjoy :)
> 
> this fic was actually born of me looking up colton point on instagram because i didn't know what he looked like and finding out he was a total weirdo. it's is about carter and sam, but it's also about friendship, and goalie weirdness, and relationships forged in outdoor ice and maple syrup. 
> 
> title is from "the bluest things on earth" by the wonder years. the song doesn't really fit the fic, but i was very inspired by the outdoor game and carter's dancing, as reported by the athletic.

“Don’t forget, dinner with my parents at eight.”

“As if Mom and Dad would let me forget,” Carter says, and Sam grins at him, wide, before leaving the room.

Christmas dinner with the Steel’s is not a tradition, by any means, but skating on their backyard rink on Boxing Day is, and Carter had been a little busy last year. This year, Sam is at World Juniors too, and while the Boxing Day tradition is still a little thrown off, their parents had jumped at the chance to celebrate together again.  

“I didn’t know you and Steelsy were dating,” Pointer says.

“We, um, we aren’t,” Carter says. “We’ve just known each other for ages, and our parents are really close.”

Colton looks skeptical. “You’re sure about that? You can tell me, you know. We have a goalie bond forged in maple syrup.”

“We really aren’t together,” Carter tells him. “And that would be really sticky.”

“Oh,” Colton says, knowingly. “But you want to be?”

“Be sticky?”

“Be dating Steelsy.”

Carter doesn’t really think about Sam in terms of wanting to date him, though he guesses that it’s true that he does. He just loves Sammy, and wants to kiss him sometimes, and thinks about maybe getting a house and some dogs together in a vague way that doesn’t seem possible with Carter going to Philly and Sam going to Anaheim.

“Our goalie bond forged in maple syrup means that you aren’t allowed to be nosy about my love life,” Carter tells Pointer.

“What love life? It sounds kind of like you don’t have one,” Colton says. “And our goalie bond has no such stipulations. In fact, I get to be extra nosy about your love life as your supportive backup both on and off the ice.”

“Did you learn that in college?” Carter asks.

Pointer flips him off. “You haven’t denied it yet. If you’re not into him, I’ll lay off.”

Carter sighs, relents. “You aren’t wrong. I really like the guy. He’s great.”

“So your parents love each other, and you have feelings, and I haven’t known Steelsy for as long as you but I’ve known him long enough to know that he’s not straight. I don’t get why you aren’t dating yet.”

“He’s my best friend,” Carter says.

Colton looks dubious. “This is a reason you shouldn’t date him, why?”

Carter doesn’t really have an answer for that.

“You should tell him,” Colton says decisively.

“What? No!”

“Why not?” Pointer asks, and yeah, that’s a pretty good question.

“I just can’t,” Carter tells him, because the prospect is terrifying for reasons he can’t really explain. What if Sam decides he hates him and never wants to talk to him again? Carter has other best friends, sure. At this point Riley is the brother he never had. But he’s known Sam since they were ten. He’s his oldest best friend, and his most special.

“Let’s make a deal,” Colton says. “You tell Steelsy how you feel before New Year’s.”

“Do I get something out of this deal?” Carter asks.

“A boyfriend?”

“You don’t even know he’ll want to date me,” Carter says.

“Hartsy, buddy, you should see how he looks at you,” Pointer says. “He’s not gonna say no if you ask him out.”

“Fine,” Carter says. “Deal.”

“We should do some extremely Canadian shots to seal it,” Colton says. “Do you think Ubereats does maple syrup?”

...

Carter met Sam when they were ten years old. He had only started goaltending a year before, and Sammy thought it was pretty weird he preferred stopping pucks to shooting them. He always needed someone to practice shooting on though, and Carter was happy to get practice stopping pucks.

The Steel’s outdoor rink was magical. Ever since he was ten, Carter’s always associated outdoor hockey with Sam, practicing breakaways and shooting pucks from every angle he could think of. Sam, taking off his blocker and glove and taking his hands and towing him around the rink, skating backwards as snow fell around them. Sam, laughing, cheeks and nose pink in the cold, sticking out his tongue to catch a snowflake and swiping a puck towards the goal while Carter was distracted doing it too.

“I think it would be kind of cool to have some snow fall,” he tells a throng of reporters. “You step onto that ice, it brings back memories.”

They don’t take the ice in whatever gear they’ve got, but in Canada red and black, and it’s everything like the rink in the Steel’s backyard and nothing like it at all. Carter looks up, and out, and sees a football stadium surrounding them, one that won’t hold all seventy thousand people it can on Friday, but still more people than he’s ever played in front of before.

He told the Athletic that he was more comfortable in front of 20,000 people than 30, but this isn’t the familiar indoor ice he’s used to. The endless stadium seats rise up around him and it feels like it could be too much.

“Hey,” Sam says, skating up beside him like he knows, gloved hand on Carter’s back. Carter, logically, can’t feel his warmth through a jersey and pads and gloves, but it feels like he can. “Just like my backyard, okay? Just like any day in my backyard.”

Carter thinks about how cold his feet are, his nose running from the sub-zero temperatures. He thinks about taking the ice with Sammy, how they announced the outdoor game and he hoped and hoped that Sam would be on this team with him, to play outdoors with him like they first did almost ten years ago. Just like any other day on the Steel’s outdoor rink. He can do that, tomorrow, when they play the United States.

...

The thing is, on any day in the Steel’s backyard, on any indoor sheet of ice too, whether it’s on the ice at Xfinity in Everett or Bell Centre in Montreal or anywhere in between — Carter’s never been the best at shootouts.

Sam goes up on Oettinger, and doesn’t score. Then Bellows is up on Carter, and he scores. Tkachuk is up on Carter, and he scores. Carter stops Mittelstadt, and Drake just needs to score, to cover up Carter’s fuck up, to get them even and keep this going. Drake doesn’t score.

And they lose to the Americans, again. In a fucking shootout, again. Shootouts are on the goalie, Carter knows, and he’s the one that let them get there. It’s on him that they scored two in the third.

He can’t feel his feet. Like on the backyard rink.

He wins player of the game, skates up to accept his award. It’s a fucking consolation prize, for losing in a shootout yet again.

They go back to their locker room and Carter just sits in his stall, his head in his hands, letting warmth bleed back into his extremities, letting the subdued post loss conversation blur around him.

Socked feet shuffle in front of him and Carter looks up at Sam.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t win it for you,” he says quietly, pressing his forehead against Sammy’s chest and breathing in deep to fend off tears.

“Hey, hey, Carts, no. It’s on us. We couldn’t win it for you. You gave everything. You’re the last person at fault here.” Sam pushes a hand through Carter’s hair. “You had 32 saves. Their goalie had 19. We should’ve done better, to score for you. Now c’mon. You gotta get out of your gear and shower so we can go get something to eat.”

Carter leaves his face pressed into Sam’s sweaty t-shirt for a few more seconds, then sits up. “Okay.”

“We’ll win the next one,” Sam says. “I know it.”

...

The next day, Carter gets a shutout. Eighteen saves, sure, and he's had a lot more before, but only eighteen saves matter when your opponent has eighteen shots. 

“Told you,” Sam says.

“Know you did, Sammy,” Carter says, leaning into Sam on their way back from the showers.

Colton, already dressed, slings and arm around Carter and pulls him away from Sam. “Saturdays are for the goalies,” he announces, to the room as a whole. “You aren’t invited.”

“Hey, no,” Dubes says. “Everybody’s celebrating Carter’s shutout, not just you two.”

“Fine,” Pointer says. “I guess Saturdays are for all the boys.”

Twenty three guys don’t fit easily into a hotel room in the Marriott, but none of them are 21 or know of any places that won’t card. (“It’s Cale’s fault for being such a babyface,” Cal jokes. Cale shoves him.)

“World Juniors in Quebec, now that was a party,” Raddy says. “Fucking American drinking age.”

“We get it, you won silver,” Forms says, and Raddy shuts up fast.

People keep handing Carter shots — “For the shutout” — and he can’t keep track of how fast he gets drunk, but it’s not long before he’s comfortably hazy and Pointer is loudly suggesting they play spin the bottle while elbowing him unsubtly in the side.

“Aren’t you straight?” Howdy asks.

“Goalies aren’t straight, we’re all flexible,” Pointer says. “Right, Hartsy?”

“He’s not wrong,” Carter says. “Stop elbowing me.”

“We’re not playing spin the bottle,” Dubes says definitively. “We are getting more drunk.”

That decided, Carter pulls away from Colton to find Sam. Maybe they can dance.

...

Before New Year’s, Pointer said, and it’s New Year’s Eve, past 11:45, and they’re in another anonymous crowded hotel room that belongs to someone on the team. Carter’s leaning against Sam, his side all warm from Sam’s body heat.

“Hey, Sammy,” he says.

“Yeah, Hartsy?”    

“Do you—” Carter starts, and it’s hard to say. It’s harder to be in front of 30 people than twenty thousand, and it’s even harder to say something to just one, when it’s Sam, when it’s this.

But he thinks about what Pointer said — “You should see how he looks at you.” He thinking about Sam and the outdoor game and growing up together in Sam’s backyard, on the Steel’s rink. It’s worth it to play in front of twenty thousand, just like it’s worth it right now, in a room full of their teammates but speaking just to Sam.

“A New Year’s kiss,” he says. “I’ve never had one.”

Sam hums. Carter forges on.

“Would you— do you want to be—”

Sam’s arm tightens around him. “Carter, are you asking if I want to kiss you?”

“I— maybe?” Carter says, and he’s not unsure, or anything, but maybe he can back out of this if Sam doesn’t—

“Yes,” Sam says. “Of course. Fuck, Hartsy.”

“I don’t just want it to be tonight though,” Carter says. “I want, like, I want a long time.”

“So you’re asking me out?” Sam asks, and Carter looks up into his face, and he’s beaming, and he’s beautiful, and Carter is so fucking in love with his best friend.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Great,” Sam says. “Yes, of course I’ll go out with you. Can I call you my boyfriend now? Are we boyfriends?”

Carter laughs, delightedly. “Yeah, yeah, I— I don’t want to wait until midnight to kiss you.”

“Me neither,” Sam says, and he leans in.

...

Playing Switzerland isn’t Carter’s best game. He only has 13 saves, and really, he should have 15. He should’ve shut them out. But they still win, and the win is what matters, the win and beating the Czechs on Thursday, and winning the gold medal game after that.

Pointer makes himself scarce and Sam comes over to curl up with Carter and cuddle in his bed.

“What if we don’t win,” Carter whispers into Sam’s chest. “What if I lose it for us again?”

“You didn’t fucking— you didn’t lose it for us. We’re the ones who have to score. You’re killing it,” Sam says.

“I can’t get silver again,” Carter mumbles.

“I don’t need a gold medal when I have you,” Sam says.

Carter blinks at him. “That’s very romantic, but I came here to win gold, and I want to do it.”

“I know,” Sam says, and he strokes Carter’s hair. “I promise you, we’re gonna get you a gold medal. I promise.”

...

Carter has spent his whole life wanting to win gold for Canada. Sam slotted himself into that fantasy neatly at the age of ten. Who knows if they’ll ever be able to do it at the Olympics one day but, well, World Juniors will do just fine.

 

**Author's Note:**

> carter and sam do in fact [train together](http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/edmonton-area-goaltending-prospect-at-home-in-the-net-and-around-the-kitchen) every summer. they first [met and played together](http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/juniors/outdoor-world-junior-game-like-old-times-canadians-steel-hart/) at the age of ten and have [practiced on the steel's outdoor rink](https://www.tsn.ca/hart-prepared-for-outdoor-clash-thanks-to-steel-s-backyard-rink-1.954448) since then! carter's briefly mentioned love of dancing was reported by [the athletic.](https://www.theathletic.com/183636/2017/12/26/carter-hart-in-his-element-as-team-canadas-starting-goaltender-at-world-juniors/) carter's post-gold insta post is a [picture of him with sam](https://www.instagram.com/p/BdmERz5Be-3/?taken-by=c_hart70)
> 
> i actually wrote this before the gold medal game so i'm very grateful to tyler steenbergen for making sure i didn't have to rewrite the end, though i still think canada won that game on goaltending :)


End file.
